The problem with Super Bowl advertising is that everyone tries too hard. Expectations run high, clients spend a load, and often the outcome is disappointing. This year, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco, answered the ad hype by intentionally giving the impression that it didn’t try at all.
The agency was under a certain amount of pressure to deliver some super spots for its client E*Trade, who had committed to airing multiple ads during the Super Bowl’s pre-game and game coverage. (Not to mention that the online trader was the much-publicized sponsor of the halftime show.) But when "Monkey" aired in the first quarter, it was clear that the advertiser had enough confidence to snub its nose at the hoopla.
The :30 opens on a long shot of a suburban garage. In front of its open door are two men sitting next to each other, one in a lawn chair, and the other on top of a cooler. Between them is a white pail turned upside down; a boom box sits in front of it. A monkey wearing a white E*Trade T-shirt over a business suit walks up to the boom box, hits the play button, steps up onto the pail and does a little jig to "La Cucaracha." The two men try to clap along with the beat. The odd trio continue this way for almost 30 seconds until a super pops up that reads: "Well, we just wasted 2 million bucks. What are you doing with your money?"
"We ran that ad in the first quarter because it was a comment on all the other ads with all the high production quality and value … we really wanted it to stand out against those," explained GS&P associate creative director/art director David Gray.
GS&P associate creative director/copywriter Gerry Graf and Gray started by coming up with the perfect money-wasting scenario, then brought in bicoastal/international hungry man director Bryan Buckley to execute their idea. "Gerry and Dave called me and said, ‘OK, there’s two guys clapping, and a monkey standing on a street corner, and it just goes on for thirty seconds,’ and I’m thinking, ‘This spot sounds terrible,’" mused Buckley. But after Graf and Gray revealed the punch line, Buckley came around. "I just laughed out loud because you just never expected that."
While the agency was intent on using a monkey and giving the spot a low-budget feel, it was unclear as to where the action in the spot would take place. Buckley and the creative team were location scouting for another E*Trade spot when they spotted the garage. "It’s funny when you go up to someone and say, ‘We want to use your house for a Super Bowl commercial’—it’s like they just won the Lotto," said Buckley.
The production’s second challenge was finding the right talent, including the monkey. Graf felt it had to be an older-looking monkey so as not to make the commercial look too cute. "Brooks" was pulled out of his retirement at Birds & Animals Unltd., Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla., and flown in for the shoot.
The two men who appear in the spot weren’t actors, but people Buckley had come across during other projects. The older man who sat to the left of the monkey was actually the father of the actor Buckley cast in "Broker," an earlier E*Trade spot out of GS&P. The man to the right was an aspiring actor, but hadn’t quite made it in a previous casting session Buckley held a couple of months ago. "Everything about [the man on the right] was so memorable and different and quirky that I think a lot of people were looking at him more than at the monkey," said Buckley. Gray added that "a lot of people thought he was mentally disabled, but he’s not; he owns his own business."
The crew consensus was that "Brooks" was the most talented monkey they had ever worked with—and, in many cases, easier to direct than the men. "You’d tell the monkey to run up the driveway, jump over the boom box, turn it on, jump up on the garbage can and start tapping its foot, and he’d nail it every single time," Gray said. "You tell the guy on the right to stop smiling and he’d start clapping."
